Archives for September, 2009

Yreka Phlox (phlox hirsuta) is a endangered perennial subshrub with small beautiful purple flowers native to my hometown of Yreka, California. And now, it’s Yreka’s’ official flower. The official resolution from the city council: “WHEREAS the Yreka Phlox is a hardy, enduring plant that grows in poor soils with little water and is known also…

I’m going to be visiting the Perimeter Institute next week, talking on Monday (switched from Wednesday) at 3pm. Visiting Perimeter is always a treat: quantum information, quantum foundations, quantum gravity, cosmology, particle physics, superstring theory…I think I’ve thought of going into all of those fields (grad classes in astro at Berkeley not so useful these…

Krugman clarifies: I’ve been getting some comments from people who think my magazine piece was an attack on the use of mathematics in economics. It wasn’t…So by all means let’s have math in economics — but as our servant, not our master. Word. (Of course the point I was trying to make was that I…

As I discussed a few blog posts ago a serious hole in our apocalypse protection network was about to be compromised with the non-renewal of the website http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/. But it seems that Domenic has come to the rescue! See comment in the above blog post and the RSS feed update: Domenic (a true fan of…

I have been riveted by yesterday’s re-argument of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission before the United States Supreme Court. I mean who hasn’t? At stake, as they say in media newspeak, is the entire state of campaign finance law (the astute reader will note the choice of words in this sentence and smile.) The…

Any quantum people in the area of Japan in early December might be interested in ICQIT 2009. Submission deadline fast approaching (Sep 30): The International Conference on Quantum Information and Technology ICQIT2009 will be held at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan from 2nd to 5th December 2009. ICQIT2009 focuses on the following…

Over at the most uncertain blog, he of uncertain principles (aka Chad) takes up a challenge posed by @EricRWeinstein on twitter concerning Paul Krugman’s recent article on why economists got the economic crisis so wrong. Since I know even less economics than anyone around here this seems like a great opportunity for me to weigh…

One RSS feeds I subscribe to is the one at http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/. I mean, if the world is going to end, I certainly want Google reader to be the first to tell me. But today’s RSS update is, instead of the traditional “no”, different: Bye bye everyone. This domain is not being renewed. It’s been fun.…

Tomorrow, September 9, 2009 is apparently the date for a worldwide game of monopoly: Monopoly City Streets Welcome to Monopoly City Streets. You versus the world in the biggest live game of MONOPOLY in history! On the 9th SEPTEMBER, a world of property empire building on an unimaginable scale will be launched! A live worldwide…

Scott Aaronson, Leonid Grinberg, and Louis Wasserman’s “Worldview Manager” is now live at http://projects.csail.mit.edu/worldview/home. It seems that I am not in much conflict over quantum computing So, damnit, I may be wrong, but at least I’m consistent (the hobgoblin of a little mind, mind you.) Via @cgranade and @mattleifer.